Monads and comonads on module categories

DOI10.1016/J.JALGEBRA.2009.06.003zbMATH Open1208.18003arXiv0804.1460OpenAlexW2079411541MaRDI QIDQ734798FDOQ734798

Authors: Tomasz Brzeziński, Robert Wisbauer, Gabriella Böhm

Publication date: 13 October 2009

Published in: Journal of Algebra (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Let

A

be a ring and

M_{A}

the category of

A

-modules. It is well known in module theory that for any

A

-bimodule

B

,

B

is an

A

-ring if and only if the functor

- o t i m e s_{A} B : M_{A} o M_{A}

is a monad (or triple). Similarly, an

A

-bimodule

C

is an

A

-coring provided the functor

- o t i m e s_{A} C : M_{A} o M_{A}

is a comonad (or cotriple). The related categories of modules (or algebras) of

- o t i m e s_{A} B

and comodules (or coalgebras) of

- o t i m e s_{A} C

are well studied in the literature. On the other hand, the right adjoint endofunctors

H o m_{A} (B, -)

and

H o m_{A} (C, -)

are a comonad and a monad, respectively, but the corresponding (co)module categories did not find much attention so far. The category of

H o m_{A} (B, -)

-comodules is isomorphic to the category of

B

-modules, while the category of

H o m_{A} (C, -)

-modules (called

C

-contramodules by Eilenberg and Moore) need not be equivalent to the category of

C

-comodules. The purpose of this paper is to investigate these categories and their relationships based on some observations of the categorical background. This leads to a deeper understanding and characterisations of algebraic structures such as corings, bialgebras and Hopf algebras. For example, it turns out that the categories of